


Close Up

by Luzulu



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Temporary Amnesia, Threats of Violence, ed becomes the riddler all over again, more like redeveloping relatioship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-06-23 22:37:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15616539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzulu/pseuds/Luzulu
Summary: Memory loss is one of those areas of medicine that isn’t quiet fully understood. One problem unique to this condition in particular, is that those who have it are often entirely unaware. By its very nature, it predisposes even the smartest of people to doubt current reality.Edward Nygma has forgotten that he is the Riddler, and at the worst moment. An attempt to reconcile the inherency of his villainy with his physche, and one very inconvenienced Scarecrow.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in an old notebook and decided to type it up. It wasn't bad for a few years old, I only had to fix a few sentences. I think I'll probably try and finish it? If I can remember what the plot was supposed to be. But I have story commitment issues.

Memory loss is one of those areas of medicine that isn’t quiet fully understood. Sure, they generally know how you get it, and what parts of your brain that it effects, but there are aspects to it that continue to confuse those who attempt to treat it, and those afflicted with it. One problem unique to this condition in particular, is that those who have it are often entirely unaware. By its very nature, it predisposes even the smartest of people to doubt current reality.

 The first thing Edward noticed when he woke up was a sharp pain radiating from the top of his head. It was intense and aching and- ow ow ow. He whimpered slightly as, with tentative fingers, he found a thick bandage wrapped around his temples. He heard a shuffling then, but didn't open his eyes. He didn’t have to either, because not before long, someone else was opening them for him and shining a bright light into his retinas, switching it back and forth. The light was taken away, and he automatically screwed his eyes shut, bright spots dancing on the back of his eyelids. He coughed slightly and realised the rest of his body was aching. Down his back, in his hips, a soreness in his muscles that he was entirely unfamiliar with. The obvious question is drawn to the forefront of his thoughts.

How had he hurt his head?

He can’t remember.

He forced his eyes open, though it flared up a throbbing pain down one side of his head. He looked around.

The lighting was dim and the space enclosed. He saw a small floor space with two...benches either side, one of which he was lying on. The other bench had a stock of large crates on it, marked with words that he couldn't quite make out without his glasses on. To his right appeared to be two large doors, and to his left, a screen. He was in the back of a van, he figured.

There was another person in there too, tall and gangly, flipping through a notepad with a furrowed brow, pursed lips, and a coldness about him. His clothes were the oddest thing Edward had ever seen, a confusing mix of burlap, tattered cloth and leather straps. The man turned his piercing blue eyed gaze on Edward, and his features softened slightly, almost imperceptively. Edward felt his heart rate quicken as a chill of fear ran through him.

“Edward, good, you’re awake,” he said with a voice that was low and weary, “I think you should be okay, but I’m not that kind of doctor.”

The man turned back to his notes, pulling a pen from somewhere and scribbling something down. Edward continued to stare at him, wide eyed and swallowing hard. How did he know his name? He was sure he had never seen this man in his life.

“W-who are you?” his terrified stutter took the bite out of his accusatory question.

The man glanced over at him, annoyance etched in the twist of his mouth, “I don’t have time for your riddles. They could find us again at any moment.”

Edward blanched, panic rising in his tone, “No, I’ve never met you in my life- where am I?”

“We don’t have time to mess around right now, we could both die,” the stranger growled, not looking at Edward as he moved to open one of the crates, rubbing at his temples.

Edward’s hands shook- with fear, pain, confusion, he didn’t know. Probably anger. He was so unusually angry. Angry at himself, but mostly angry at this cold stranger for not paying him the respect he knew he deserved.

“I am not lying,” he seethed through gritted teeth, “I never lie. Now, you are going to tell me what is going on, or I swear I am going to call the police.”

That got the man’s attention. He turned, deliberately, seeming to consider something carefully before he spoke.

“No, you don’t lie, do you?” the man sighed deeply, “This is just what I need right now...”

Edward continued to glare silently at the man. He had wanted to ride his wave of anger through this confusion but he could feel the cogs turning in the back of his mind, putting things together that he didn’t want to be true.

The man bent down in front of him and began inspecting his bandages, “You must have hit the ground harder than I thought.”

“What does that mean?” he asked, though he knew the answer.

“Edward, I think you are suffering from memory loss,” The man watched his face for signs of reaction. Edward glanced down, licking his lower lip, “What was the last thing you remember?”

Edward’s voice was shaky when he spoke, and he made sure to make eye contact, “I was moving house. I had- I had just got a new job. I was going to be working for the technology and research department for Wayne enterprises, so I had just rented a new apartment in Gotham. I’d never been there before. That was yesterday.” It came out more as a question than a statement.

“You have lived in Gotham city for the past eight years, at least,” the man said cautiously.

“No thats. No,” Edward laughed, before clenching his jaw and screwing up his brow. Before laughing again, short and breathy. He shook his head slightly, a tiny smile curved the corners of his lips, “ _You_ are lying.”

The man didn’t laugh. His face was carefully blank. He had eyes on him like a tired doctor on a night shift, carrying the burden of a death on his watch, and preparing to pass it over to a family already at some stage of grief.

“I wish I was,” He said, quietly.

“I don’t believe you, just so you know” Edward said, voice fading from assertive to small in the space of a breath, “but, what happened? How did I get here?”

“It’s a very long story,” said the stranger, hand resting on his mouth as he sighed. He looked up with a jerk, eyes narrowing into slits as loud shouts sounded from outside of the van. The man stood, flexing his fingers and pulling several aerosol cans from one of the crates. He made it to the door and pulled it open a crack, looking back for a moment, “and I don’t have time to tell it now.”

Outside, there were several gunshots, tires screeching and shouting. Then came horrible, blood curdling screaming, silencing all other sound. Edward dug his nails into his sides, wondering just what he could have done in eight years to get himself into this situation.

 

 

He was in the passenger seat of the van, sitting next to the stranger, who was driving at definitely illegal speeds towards Gotham North. He came close to demanding the man let him leave when he had escorted him round the front, stepping out of the vehicle for a few moments. Men and women with scars on their faces were rolling on the floor of the dirty alleyway, mumbling and crying, shrinking away from their movement. He came quick to the realisation that there was something in those cans of aerosol that could do this to a person, and he really did not want to join them in the dirt.

After passing another stoplight, the stranger himself brought it up in the silence.

“You can go to the police if you want,” he said, “but the only thing they will do is arrest you.”

“But why,” his voice came out in a whine, “what have I done?”

“It’s probably not a good idea to-”

Edward scoffed, “To what? Let me know what’s happened in my life?” He paused for a second, breathing deeply, “It’s not fair to withhold that from me. For all I know, you’re the only one I can turn to right now.”  

There were a few moments during which Edward did not receive an answer. The spitting rain started coming down in a pour, thick and heavy on the road in front of them, reflecting in the streetlights; thick and heavy on the windshield of the van, blurry to Edward without his glasses. The stranger flicked on the windshield wipers.

“What you deserve is time to take in that kind of information,” Edward tried to protest, but the man raised his hand, “Believe me when I say this, I am a psychologist. You need time to receive these kind of truths. Because they are not good.”

Edward turned towards the passenger side window. There was a churning in his gut, and he was afraid, now more than ever, of what he didn’t know. He watched a fat raindrop trickle from the very top of the glass to the very bottom before he speaks again.

“If you won’t tell me what happened to me, will you tell me what’s going on right now?”

Though he was looking away, Edward felt the man’s sidelong glance on his back and heard his heavy sigh.

“I don’t see why not,” he muttered, “Listen up.”

Edward turned towards him. The man was concentrating, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly and staring at the road.

“I messed up. Actually, it’s your fault, but let’s not get into that,” he waved a hand in the air as if to brush the matter aside, “two orders of my drugs got mixed up. One, meant to have a fear inducing hallucinogenic effect, the other with potent paralytic properties. They went to the wrong buyers. The people buying my hallucinogens were using them to test their group members by dosing them up and putting them in dangerous situations. However, they were paralysed instead and many ended up dead. These are the guys trying to kill us. They are not a problem. Mostly.”

He frowned, “the other ones are being taken to a place that manufactures poisons for a particularly dangerous man. If the poison is made with hallucinogenic properties rather than paralytic ones, everything he does with it will be attributed to me rather than him, and he will skin me alive.” He took a long breath, “I have to stop the shipment before it reaches the facility.”

Edward sucked in air through his teeth, “Geez, that’s pretty heavy. Who’s this man?”

“He’s a psychopathic criminal with no known name,” he explains, “calls himself, ‘Joker’”.

Edward laughed, “He’s got a special ‘criminal name’? That’s ridiculous.”

The man scoffed, “That’s rich, coming from you.”

The man didn't say anything after that, and neither did Edward. The van shook and the city was loud, but otherwise there was quiet. Edward took time to contemplate what those last words meant.

The next two hours passed similarly, with Edward trying to gather what information he could from the man (whose name was Jonathan, he tells him). The drive to the facility could take a number of days- it was many hundreds of miles to the north- but that was okay because it would take the same amount of time for the delivery to arrive. Then Edward had asked some questions about why he was in the back of Jonathan's van in the first place, and where they were going to sleep. Jonathan had threatened him- non-specifically but forebodingly- and Edward had shut up. He resigned himself to staring out the window grumpily. Though he had barely seen it, the outside world was so different from the Gotham he swore he had known just yesterday. The lazy sprawl was replaced with clustered buildings, towering and mean, not allowing space to breath. So much more smoke, and near constant droning police sirens in the distance. Even as they moved into the outer city settlements, people moved fast and kept their heads down. They held both fear, and weary acceptance of that fear. He recognised it as similar to the fear that wrapped itself around his shoulders and told him to be small when he was embarrassed or thought no one was watching. Similar but different.

He wrapped his arms around himself, leant on the window and closed his eyes. There was no one there to impress.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god I wrote an update. Why for this instead of my more popular overwatch fic? Probably because I've been watching Gotham. Let it be known that these versions of the characters are loosely based on the comics, but also take inspiration from the movies, games and animated series. They're not tied to a specific canon, but I tend to use pre-52 backstories and such. Also, I write Eddie as being averse to uncleanliness as a facet of his OCD.

“Well, this looks nice,” Edward said, peering out onto the side street as Jonathan opened the door to the passenger seat.

“You think?” Jonathan said, checking up and down the road.

“No,” he said shortly, “It’s horrifying.”

“Hmm,” Jonathan pretended to think for a moment, nodding pensively and biting his lip “get out of the fucking van.”

Edward gingerly lowered himself down onto the pavement below, avoiding a wide puddle of mud and oil. He shot another glance at the decaying, condemned apartment building they’d stopped in front of.

“Really?” he said, grimacing up at Jonathan.

The taller man met his gaze evenly, “Yes.”

He turned on Edward, striding off between the fences strapped with all manner of ‘keep out’ signs. Edward hesitated on the side walk for a second; looking between the vehicle and the man he was with. There was no way he could figure out how to hotwire the van before Jonathan noticed. Also, he had absolutely no idea where they were. They’d driven several hours into the night before Jonathan turned their route into a back alley in the very outskirts of the greater Gotham area. The street was smoky, dripping, and there were distant shouts coming from around several corners. He let out a high pitched whine before taking after Jonathan. He had to carefully pick his way through the maze of fences, watching his footing for rusted and sharp pieces of metal and generic urban slime. He met Jonathan at the front door, searching through a keychain.

“We’re really staying here? Not just hiding the van?”

Jonathan gave him a blank look, twisting the key in the lock and walking in. Edward rolled his eyes, peering deep into the building as he dared. It was dark, and Jonathan was already disappearing. Edward squeaked and ducked inside. The carpet had the audacity to somehow both crunch and squelch under his footsteps. He caught up to Jonathan as he neared the stairwell. He grabbed onto a tassel of Jonathan’s odd getup. The taller man stopped immediately, turning and raising his eyebrows. Edward coughed, letting him go.

“It’s rude to walk off.”

“It is,” Jonathan said, before starting up the stairs, taking as many as three steps at a time.

“Wait- that’s not fair!” he scowled, muttering under his breath, “You’re so...stupid legs...”

 

Jonathan waited for him at the fourteenth floor, leaning against the apartment door. He watched as Edward hauled himself up the last few steps, unlocking the door nonchalantly. Edward panted on the landing.

“I’m not built for stairs,” he gasped between heavy breaths.

Jonathan’s lip quirked upwards, “I think you’ll find your body is much more capable than you remember.”

“What does that mean?”

“Never mind. Welcome home.”

The door creaked open with a sound like teeth grinding.

There was little light inside the room. It was dark outside, save for the brightness of the city, which barely shone through the papered up windows. Everything was highlighted in soft yellows, dust hanging in the flourescence.

Moving to step further inside, Edward felt a hand grab his arm. Jonathan silently pointed towards a tripwire on the floor. Edward followed the mechanisms of the trap over to a heavy looking shotgun hidden in a hole carved into a loveseat. Had he taken another step, he would have had a hole blown into his midsection.

“Ah,” Edward said, “This is your place, then?”

“It is,” Jonathan replied, guiding Edward towards what appeared to have once been a sitting room, pointing out various contraptions that he should step over duck beneath, “One of them.”

“You have more of these?” Edward asked, incredulously, looking around the damp and dirty place with distaste.

“Safe houses, Edward. I don’t exactly get my mail delivered here.” Jonathan called, from what seemed to be the bathroom. If this was the living room, Edward didn’t even want to consider the state of the toilet.

Jonathan came back into the living room looking extremely tired.

“None of the traps have gone off. So in the very least I don’t think anyone has been here,” he sat down heavily on one of the sofas. The moth bitten sheet covering the piece of furniture let out a cloud of dust upon impact. Edward tried to smother a coughing fit, and eyed the other seats cautiously, before spotting a mostly wooden footstool. He dragged it over, narrowly avoiding hitting a trip wire. Jonathan lent backwards in his seat as Edward sat down across from him, “And no one’s touched the weapons in the airing closet, so we have those.”

Edward took a deep breath. This wasn’t getting any easier.

“Gotham’s a rough neighbourhood, huh? Necessitating the, uh, safe houses, and traps and ... weapons...”

The dim yellow lighting picked out the harsh lines of Jonathan’s face; his high cheekbones, thin jaw and cold blue eyes. The dust shifted as he sighed and turned to face the pale glow from the windows.

“Don’t play dumb, Edward. It doesn’t suit you.”

Edward touched the bandage around his head carefully.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edward felt his words quickly absorbed into the damp walls, not coming out nearly as assertively as he had intended. He heard Jonathan breathe in before he heard him speak.

“I’m a criminal, Ed.” When Edward didn’t respond for a few moments, Jonathan continued, “You know that, right?

“Thought you were a psychologist.”

Jonathan’s laughter was dry and crackling, like wheat.

“Well, they never revoked my doctorate, so. But I’m not practicing anymore. In any kind of legal sense.”

Edward nodded, licking his front teeth.

“So, am I your hostage or something? Because I’m kind of over it.”

“Feel free to think whatever you want, if it makes it easier. I’ve always encouraged patients to maintain their pleasant delusions. Though it’s rather a waste of your brilliant mind,” Jonathan shook his head, “But I did tell you you’re free to go, anytime you want. I’m just trying to help you.”

Edward threw his hands up, “Why?”

“For one, I’d be fascinated to watch how amnesia interacts with your various other conditions. But believe it or not, we’re actually something like friends. I have a fair investment in returning you to normal.”

Edward allows himself a small laugh, “Of course we’re friends. Of course that’s it. I’m fascinating, and likable, to a criminal, even. Of course.”

Jonathan rolled his eyes, shaking his head.

“The more things change...” he gets up, “I’m going to make the bed. You’ll be alright with the floor?”

Edward blanched, “wha-no!”

From the bedroom, he hears Jonathan’s chuckle.

 

 

 

 

“Catch.”

“What- oh hey, look, I caught it,” Edward said, looking at the small box Jonathan had tossed him with surprise.

“As I said, your body may be much more competent than you remember.”

Edward frowned at that. Had he been working out? He didn’t feel like he’d been working out.

Jonathan was searching through a hidden compartment in the bedroom wardrobe. Edward looked warily at the large quantity of needles Jonathan was pulling out and putting aside.

“Aha. I’ve left myself a change of clothes,” Jonathan said, shaking out a bulky brown sweater. He began undoing some of the leather straps from around his arms and legs.

“Do you have anything in there for me?” Edward asked, watching with some fascination how Jonathan’s outfit came apart. Jonathan made a small noise of dissent, pulling burlap and cloth up over his head. Edward cleared his throat, but it took him a moment to fully look away from his now shirtless companion.

“Those are quite some scars you’ve got there.”

Pausing in buttoning up his shirt, Jonathan looked down at himself, long fingers brushing across the messy pale tears on his torso.

“Well, regular doctors are sort of out of the question,” he grumbled, “but I do take pride in my abilities with a sewing needle,” he pulled the sweater over his head, smoothing it down over the shirt, “you should take a look at yourself sometime. You’ve probably got some you don’t recognise.”

Edward left the room when Jonathan started taking off his pants. He passed the box back and forth, thinking.

“How would you know that?” he asked.

“Just a hunch,” Jonathan called, opening the door, now fully dressed like a normal person. Edward made a mental note to compare him to a school teacher when he got the chance. A very tall, and exhausted looking school teacher.

Edward motioned down at himself, “What about me?”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow, “You’re lucky it’s just the green suit. Take off the jacket and tie and you’ll be fine. Your bowler’s in the van.”

Edward’s mouth fell agape, “I have a bowler hat? I’ve always wanted one.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me? I’m going to bed.”

Edward let out a sigh, feeling very, very tired. He didn’t want to believe he was about to lie down on the floor of a rotting apartment and go to sleep with a criminal. He felt filthy just being here. His fingers were itching for him to scrub them clean, of dirt and whatever he’d got involved with over the last eight years. He felt older, in a body that wasn’t his. Aside from his head, his bones ached in ways he wasn’t familiar with. He balled his fist, resolving to get proper answers out of Jonathan in the morning.

“Wait! What’s in the box?” Edward called, following the other back into the bedroom.

“Crackers? I think,” Jonathan said, already climbing under the dirty looking covers.

 _Oh_ , Edward thought, lowering himself down onto the blanket that Jonathan had laid out on the floor. _Surprisingly kind of him._

He placed his head on the lumpy pillow he’d been leant, and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the city and Jonathan’s breathing.

“It smells like mildew in here,” he remarked into the quiet.

He heard the sheets moving somewhere above him, “Are you going to sleep or am I going to have to gas you?”

_There it was._

Unsure, and clutching the box tightly, Edward closed his eyes.

 

 


End file.
